Standing Committee E

[Mr. Derek Conway in the Chair]

Housing Bill

Robert Syms: On a point of order, Mr. Conway. I just want to help our proceedings along. The Government undertook widespread consultation on the next part of the Bill, which deals with home information packs, and they were due to publish their response to the consultations last Thursday, but as far as I am aware, they have not done so. It would be extremely helpful to the Bill's progress if members of the Committee were told when the Government will respond to the consultation exercise, as it would be useful for us to know their latest thinking about such an important aspect of the Bill.

Derek Conway: Unfortunately, the Government's consultation processes are not a matter for me—but perhaps the Minister wishes to respond to that point?

Keith Hill: Thank you, Mr. Conway. The hon. Gentleman has made a perfectly fair point. I understand that the publication of our response is imminent. I am actively in pursuit of more precise information on the subject and, when it wings its way to me, I undertake to inform the Committee.Clause 86 Interim and final management orders: introductory

Clause 86 - Interim and final management orders: introductory

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 314, in
clause 86, page 57, line 31, leave out '5' and insert '3'.
 [R] Relevant registered interest declared.

Derek Conway: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
 Amendment No. 323, in 
clause 98, page 68, line 16, leave out '5' and insert '3'.

John Hayes: It is a relief and a constant delight to me that my Committee colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms), has a razor-sharp wit and a keen intelligence. He has again been incisive and pithy this morning.
 I turn now to more prosaic matters, although I do not want to undersell amendments Nos. 314 and 323. As the Minister will no doubt explain, this part of the Bill deals with interim and final management orders. They apply in difficult situations in which an order is required to bring a house in multiple occupation into line with what is reasonably conceived to be efficient management. The amendments are designed to temper the degree to which the proposals will affect the proper 
 entitlement and expectations of both landlords and tenants. It seems a little excessive—I put it no stronger than that, because the amendments are probing amendments—to imagine that it will take no fewer than five years to bring a house into proper management on a ''long-term basis'', as set out in the Bill. 
 No doubt the Minister will remind me that five years is the maximum term of the order; he will say that such a period would be unusual and that, typically, requirements will be met more quickly and efficiently than that. However, I am mindful of the importance of the Bill containing proper checks and balances in respect of the new powers that we offer local authorities. As I have said, there will be variability in the speed, efficiency and effectiveness with which local authorities use their new powers, and we must not give them an open cheque. I know that inefficiency is not typical of local authorities—certainly not Tory local authorities—but there will be exceptions to the rule. 
 It is important to put checks on the Government's time scale to the expiry of final management orders, and the amendments would reduce that from five years to three years. It seems entirely appropriate that, throughout this part of the Bill, we are ever mindful of the need to balance the quite fitting desire to bring under proper management houses that are not being dealt with correctly against the need to protect the interests of owners and landlords. Landlords would find it pretty unacceptable if their house could be taken under the management of another authority for five years. 
 I do not know why a period of five years was picked; I hope that the Minister will explain, and that he will refer to any representations that he has received from landlords' organisations and the Council of Mortgage Lenders, both of which will feel a degree of scepticism about the length of that period. I wonder whether three years was considered as an alternative. The Minister might also tell us what checks the Department will place on local authorities that drag their feet and deal with such matters inefficiently or less than effectively. Those are important reassurances that must be given to the Committee before it decides whether to support the amendments or defer to the original wording of the Bill.

Matthew Green: I oppose the amendments. I understand why the Conservatives have tabled them to challenge the period mentioned in the clause, but by the time a final management order is reached, a number of hoops have already been gone through, but the landlord is clearly failing quite seriously. Under an interim management order, landlords will be given considerable time to bring themselves into line.
 When we deal with provisions such as interim and final management orders, we tend to feel it might be better to deal with groups of clauses, rather than with one at a time. The Minister has said so himself, on occasion. My understanding, which I am sure the Minister will confirm, is that the final management order can be renewed before the end of the period, so that even if the period laid down were three years, the authorities 
 could keep renewing the order; it would not definitely end when that period had elapsed. In addition, the order can be appealed against to the county court. I would have thought that it was in a council's interests to return a property to the private sector as fast as possible once it is satisfied that ownership has passed into the hands of a suitable landlord. To reduce the period to three years would therefore be almost meaningless, because of the powers in clause 98. 
 It is none the less useful that general points have been raised about interim and final management orders, because I have some general concerns of my own. I hope that the Minister will give an overview of part 4, as it appears to be particularly cumbersome. The orders seem to replicate the existing management and control orders, but my understanding is that councils do not use those very much because they find them very cumbersome, bureaucratic and difficult to use. Regardless of whether the period is three years or five, councils will face a degree of complexity in this respect. My concern is far from that of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), who says that councils will be rushing in and applying the orders, and that landlords will not be able to get out of them. My concern is that councils will not use the powers because of their complexity. It would be helpful if the Minister touched on that.

Keith Hill: Alert as I always am to the best interests of the Committee, may I begin by responding to the point of order made by the hon. Member for Poole? We propose to publish our response to the consultation on home information packs today. We also intend copies to be available to Committee members today. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point of order and allowing me to make such a helpful response.
 I am grateful to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings for the tone of his comments. I understand that the amendments are of a probing nature; I will respond to them in due course. I am even more grateful to the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) for his support. I will be happy to discuss the existing control orders and how our proposals differ. I will take advantage of the invitation he gave to say a few introductory words—or as I like to say, in my quaint Bevinite fashion, to engage in a little tour d'horizon—as we start to discuss part 4. Committee members will rightly want to consider the proposals in some detail during today's sittings. However, I ask that we do not have too detailed a debate right now, because it would be more appropriate for the detailed discussions on the operation of part 4 to take place as we debate the relevant clauses. 
 It is fair to say that there is a broad consensus across the parties that the aims of our licensing proposals in parts 2 and 3 are sound. There may be disagreement to some extent on the scope of the proposals or on parts of the regulatory regime supporting licensing, but it is pleasing to be able to say that there is an acceptance that there will be benefits for tenants, communities and 
 landlords in ensuring better management of the parts of the private rented sector that have the worst problems. I stress that it is the worst types of property that we want to regulate. All properties that fall into that category must have some form of effective management in place to protect the welfare of the tenant and/or the surrounding community. In the vast majority of cases, the landlord or his agent will provide that management, but, unfortunately, that may not always be the case. In such instances there must be powers to impose effective management. Much of part 4 is taken up with achieving that through the making of management orders. 
 It might be useful if I explain how a management order might come about. In the licensing regime generally, it is a requirement that all licensable properties be licensed. If landlords cannot be granted a licence themselves—for example, because they are not fit and proper—they may propose an alternative arrangement to ensure a licence is obtained. In practice, many landlords employ a management agent who becomes the licensee, but if that cannot be done, no licence can be granted on that property, and since licensing is there to ensure that effective management is in place, in such circumstances we would require the local authority to make an interim management order. I should make it absolutely clear that a local authority cannot simply permit a property that is supposed to be licensed to continue to operate with no effective management. 
 Essentially, a management order places the local authority in the shoes of the landlord and it would be its responsibility to ensure that the property was properly managed. Similarly, there may be circumstances in which a licence is revoked. If no alternative licensee can be found, the local authority will have to make a management order. 
 An interim management order runs for up to 12 months. As the name implies, it is an interim measure that is to be used as a stop-gap until satisfactory longer-term management can be put in place. We hope that that will be achieved through the granting of a licence, but there may be cases in which that is not possible. In those circumstances, a local authority is required to make a final management order if the property remains licensable. 
 With a management order, the local authority steps into the landlord's shoes, but it does not take over as owner. The owner remains free to sell the property, to mortgage it, and to do most other things in the capacity of ''owner''. However, as long as the management order is in force, the owner will not be able exercise any of the management functions of a landlord. Instead, the local authority will collect rents, enforce tenancy conditions, and be responsible for repairs and for new lettings. New lettings under an interim management order, or lettings that will exceed the term of a final management order, will need the owner's approval. A final management order may last for up to five years, although it may be in place for a shorter period. I will expand on that shortly, in responding to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. 
 Such management is not cost-free to local authorities, so the Bill provides for reasonable management costs to be deducted from the rental income, including costs necessary for the local authority to manage the property properly. For example, the local authority can recover the cost of work done to the property to meet the landlord's repairing obligations. 
 However, management orders are not simply concerned with problematic rented properties within the mandatory licensing regime or an additional or selective regime. With the appropriate approval—we propose a residential property tribunal—such orders could be applied to individual rented properties. That would allow serious management failures to be addressed without extending more generally the scope of licensing. 
 We are trying to achieve targeted regulation. The provision could address the sort of individual problematic rented properties mentioned by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) during Thursday's sitting. Something has to be done about such properties—they might be associated with serious antisocial behaviour, for example—but their isolated nature might make widespread licensing inappropriate. For a management order to be made, those properties would need to be within the potential scope of the discretionary licensing regimes under parts 2 and 3. There would have to have been a breakdown of management in a rented property so bad that it affected the health, safety or welfare of the residents or of the neighbourhood. The remaining provisions of part 4 deal with the control of overcrowding in HMOs that are not subject to any licensing provision. However, I am certain that that will be debated fully later, so I will say no more about it for the time being. 
 I hope that that relatively brief overview has been helpful, and I now turn to amendments Nos. 314 and 323, which would reduce the duration of an FMO. I understand the intention of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings in tabling these probing amendments. I should clarify that a final management order does not have to be made for five years; a shorter period can be specified. Would it help the hon. Gentleman, who was concerned about greater information on such matters, if I—cough, cough—were to repeat that element of clarification that he was so anxious to hear? [Laughter.] I say again that a final management order does not have to be made for five years and that a shorter period can be specified. The owner of a property can also apply to a local authority to have such an order revoked if, for example, a management arrangement sufficiently robust for a licence to be granted is implemented. Similarly, a local authority can revoke an order that it considers no longer necessary. 
 That is analogous to the way that licences operate. It seems logical that, as a licence is granted for a period of up to five years, a management order should also be. That is because, in effect, the local authority is operating as something akin to a licensee by ensuring 
 that proper management is in place in such a property. Therefore, there is little reason to specify a different time period from that which can apply to ordinary licences. 
 Opposition Members have asked several times for further clarification about how the regulatory approach in respect of licensing will impact on owners wishing to sell properties and the subsequent purchasers. The imposition of a management order does not take away the right of the owner to sell his property, but neither does the sale of the property necessarily bring an end to the need for that property to be managed effectively. Therefore, the management order would remain in place unless the local authority felt that the new owner was capable of achieving that. If the new owner is suitable, there will be no reason for the local authority not to revoke a management order in those circumstances. 
 I hope that I have explained our approach to the satisfaction of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. In light of my reasonable explanations, I ask him to withdraw the amendment. 
 The hon. Member for Ludlow raised the issue of control orders. He is right that management orders are not unprecedented. Existing legislation—the Housing Act 1985—provides that a local housing authority can take control as an alternative to closing an unfit or unsafe HMO. The proposals in this Bill offer the opportunity for a more graduated and flexible approach than that set out in the control orders. Control orders have a long history. They were first introduced in the Housing Act 1964: an authority takes possession of a property with immediate effect, irrespective of any appeal.

Matthew Green: Will the Minister give way?

Keith Hill: Let me first pursue the argument, and then I will seek to respond to the hon. Gentleman's comments.
 The control order lasts for five years unless it is revoked. It allows the local authority to receive rent and to act as a private landlord. It is a draconian measure, although provision is made for the dispossessed proprietor to be compensated. 
 I wish to make a few additional remarks that have very recently occurred to me. Control orders are inflexible and expensive to make. Local authorities have to pay compensation, which may have been a deterrent to their employment of them. They deprive the landlord of his property and can lead to its compulsory purchase. They are not mandatory, in the sense that an authority does not have to use them. They are not in practice widely used. There is a case for intervention of the type that we are proposing in the Bill: the requirement for that type of intervention has been recognised for at least 40 years. However, control orders have not been widely employed, perhaps because of their complex, expensive and extreme nature.

Matthew Green: My understanding is that management and control orders are almost always used in conjunction with compulsory purchase.
 Therefore, they have not proved to be useful in other circumstances. Even if there is a bit more flexibility in this system, is the Minister confident that local authorities will find that they can use it easily—after, of course, the problems have arisen—and that they will not be deterred by the complexity of these orders?

Keith Hill: The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly reasonable point. It will be incumbent on Government to work with local authorities to provide adequate guidance, to share experience, and to train. There is huge potential in the management order system to respond to specific challenges that we have debated, which are inherent in the Bill, and to a future wider context.
 Let me add for the sake of completion that IMOs—interim management orders—must be made if a property needs a licence and one is not in place. Those orders can, unlike the old control orders, be made for a very short period. As far as I am aware, the hon. Member for Ludlow is right in saying that they have not been widely used, but some authorities make extensive use of them, which reinforces the point that this is a learning process. Once the experience of implementing these measures is acquired, it might, perhaps, become easier to put them into practice. It is the Government's responsibility to ensure that that opportunity is made available to local authorities. 
 Control orders are different because they can only be used to deal with poor property conditions, not with antisocial behaviour, which is central to the Bill. Interim management orders deal with both poor property conditions and the wider issues of antisocial behaviour. It is helpful to have had the opportunity to refer to control orders. I hope that I have answered the hon. Gentleman's questions to his reasonable satisfaction and reassured the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings on the time scale.

John Hayes: If the Minister's reasonableness and courtesy were matched by an ability to cough at will, he would indeed be a renaissance man. His remarks about the timetable are helpful; he has told the Committee that at the outset it will invariably be made clear and will typically be much less than five years. The five-year period is there as a long stop and to provide consistency with the other parts of the Bill. On that basis, and having heard what he and others have said on the clause generally, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. 
 Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Robert Syms: The Minister has set out generally how he sees things operating. I should like to make one or two points, which I suspect will become clear as we work through the clauses.
 A local authority would go to a property tribunal. I welcome the fact that we are talking about property tribunals in the Bill, rather than county courts. A lot 
 of people believe that because a tribunal is a specialist body, and sometimes courts have to take advice on property matters, that is a much better way to deal with these aspects. The authority would take over a property, collect the rents and use the money initially for health and safety purposes to try to bring it up to a reasonable standard. Under the Bill—as can be seen in later clauses—the authority has a duty to ensure that that property is insured, which is right and proper because it is in control of it and no one would want the asset to burn down. That is part of being a responsible landlord. 
 First, can the Minister tell me—either now, or at the appropriate point later on—how the local authority interacts with the mortgage holder? Most of the properties will be the subject of bank or building society loans. If the authority gets the rent, uses the money for the specific purpose of improving the quality of the property and gives the surplus rent to the landlord, is it the landlord's duty to service the mortgage with that surplus? Could a mortgage company collect the payments on a mortgage via the local authority, or would the owner of the property be expected to deal with the mortgagee with the surplus? If that is so, and the authority's raison d'etre is to bring a property up to standard quickly, there might not be surplus funds to pay the mortgagee. My concern is that although an interim management order may be taken out for a period of years, the whole thing will quickly fall in a heap if the building society, bank, or whoever, feels that a loan is not being serviced because the local authority is, quite properly, looking after the health and safety elements of the property and is not in a position to service the mortgage company. The Minister should set out that issue clearly. It is important because, apart from the authority and the owner of the property, the people who own the mortgages will be the real players when it comes to the operation of interim or final management orders. 
 Secondly, local authorities will incur costs by taking this course of action. I am not sure which costs the local authority can charge to the landlord for undertaking a management order. If the legal department of a local authority has expended several hundreds or thousands of pounds, can that be charged to the landlord? The moment that a local authority takes out an interim management order, is it a loss-maker, in that it is doing something for the public good but it is not able to recoup the money? 
 Thirdly, how quickly does the authority have to pass on any surplus money to a landlord? If an authority takes on a property that is substandard and has health and safety problems, it will want to deal with those first. Initially, it will not be able to—[Interruption.] Is there a problem, Mr. Conway?

Derek Conway: It will be difficult for the Minister to respond as fully as he might like to the hon. Gentleman's perfectly reasonable points if, rather than dealing with clause 86 and the making of the management orders, we talk about clause 93, which relates to the effect of having made an interim management order. These are two separate issues, and we are in danger of moving into clause 93 territory.

Robert Syms: What I am trying to get at is whether, when a management order is made, decisions about finances are made within the orders. It is clearly important for the person who owns a property to know what the management scheme will be, and how the moneys and finances will operate. The individual who finds that he has lost control of his property must immediately go to the Halifax and say, ''I have a problem, manager.'' The manager will ask how big a problem and how much money is involved, and he will say that he does not know because the local authority has taken it over and that perhaps, in six months' time, he will be told what the situation is. It is important that when an order is made parties understand the obligations and likely outcomes.
 My final point relates to whether the authority, by regulation, has any incentive to pay moneys quickly. If it does not have an incentive, the tendency will be for it to sit on money, and the poor old residential landlord who has lost his authority will have obligations but no money coming through. I apologise, Mr. Conway, for straying a little from the point, but it is important to find out the financial implications of the interim management order. Unless we understand them, we will not know whether the orders will work, which was the point raised by the hon. Member for Ludlow.

Sally Keeble: I have a couple of questions, some of which I have raised before. Some of the most unscrupulous landlords, who make a business out of operating in this type of property, are likely to dump the management responsibility on the local authority because it will be a nice one to get rid of. I am thinking in particular of the people who have bought up some of the ex-National Coal Board properties. Those are let to people on housing benefit, there is no issue about mortgages, and they were bought at knock-down prices. The properties have very much deteriorated, and the cost of repairs is bound to be more than the value of the housing benefit. I am concerned that local authorities could get landed with managing properties without an adequate income stream.
 We must bear in mind that inspections by housing authorities show that this is the type of thing that they find very difficult to do. Housing authorities, in particular those operating in areas where landlordism is prevalent do not have a good record on it. We are giving not only a power but a duty to some areas. Some tenants might be happy for management to shift to the local authority because they will get rid of their rogue landlord, and some landlords might be happy because they will get rid of property management costs. For some landlords, all that will be left is the capital value because the area can be sold for redevelopment. I am concerned that the local authority will be left in an uncomfortable position. What kind of monitoring will there be of the impact of the management orders to ensure they work in the way that the Government intend and that there are no perverse consequences?

John Hayes: Further to the points made by the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble), the issue may not be only local authorities' effectiveness, but their ability to deal with the new responsibilities if they are not sufficiently resourced. It may not be a matter of their being culpable, but of their being unable to carry out their legal responsibilities. Our arguments are similar. We need to have proper checks and balances to ensure that once the rogue landlord has been removed from the scene, as the hon. Lady put it, the local authority is able to do its job properly and the situation is beneficial to all concerned.

Keith Hill: Clause 87 sets out the circumstances in which a local authority may make, or is required to make, an interim management order. Clause 87(2)(b) provides that the authority must make an IMO if a house that is required to be licensed is not licensed, and either
''(i) that there is no reasonable prospect of its being so licensed in the near future, or 
 (ii) that the health and safety condition is satisfied (see section 89).'' 
I should say a word about the health and safety tests as I propose to make frequent references to them. I prefer to think of them as the ''unhealthy and unsafe tests'', because they are negative tests—tests that demonstrate that the property has failed to meet health and safety standards. The Committee will be delighted to hear that the phrase ''in the near future'', which appears in clause 87(2)(b)(i), means very soon and applies where a landlord or manager has failed, either deliberately or through negligence, to make an application for a licence, or if the landlord cannot be traced to make the application. 
 The Bill provides the local authority with information-gathering powers, which we will discuss further when we consider part 7, to enable it to obtain information about who ought to be licensed. As the Under-Secretary said when we debated clause 66, local authorities are under a general duty to promote the licensing scheme, including seeking landlords for applications.

Matthew Green: I am a little confused. I may be wrong, but the Minister appears to be discussing clause 87 stand part, but I believe we are discussing clause 86 stand part.

Derek Conway: The hon. Gentleman is right about clause 86 stand part, but the Minister need not worry too much. When dealing with introductory clauses, it is difficult not to mention related clauses, so a degree of tolerance would not go amiss on these occasions. However, we are discussing clause 86 stand part and we will happily move on to the Minister's chosen ground later.

Keith Hill: I can only apologise to the Committee. In my anxiety to hasten our proceedings and to provide as much information as possible, I hurried along. I assume that my utterances on clause 87 can now be taken as read, and I will not delay the Committee further. Once again, I apologise fulsomely for the oversight.

Derek Conway: I call Mr. Hayes.

John Hayes: Oh, am I up again?

Derek Conway: If you stand, you are.

John Hayes: No, I think I am sitting; I do not wish to speak again.

Derek Conway: In that case, I call the Minister.

Keith Hill: I am in a state of total confusion, but I feel that it would be appropriate for me to respond to the debate that we have just had.
 I appreciate the welcome that the hon. Member for Poole gives the proposed property tribunals. To be entirely honest, I felt a frisson of anxiety that perhaps Committee members had not looked at the proposals in any detail. Obviously, the Opposition had and were content with them, but it was reassuring to have that welcome. As the Committee is probably aware, the tribunals are built on the old rent assessment panels, which have become the leasehold valuation tribunals. We believe that the panels worked satisfactorily, and the new bodies will offer the necessary expertise for dealing with many of the issues set out in the Bill. 
 We have been cautioned that we are at risk of straying into issues that will emerge later in our consideration of this part, but I would like to mention briefly the issue of mortgages, which was raised by the hon. Member for Poole. Of course, that issue will be dealt with under the management scheme under an FMO, and the hon. Gentleman probably understood that. I have to confess that dealing with the mortgage is possibly not so straightforward under an IMO—for example, the local authority may not know who the lender is in those circumstances. However, that is an issue that needs to be resolved as part of the long-term management of the property. 
 The hon. Member for Poole asked what costs can be charged, and the answer is reasonable management costs. We will come to that under clause 94. Expenditure includes administrative costs. As the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings has been kind enough to point out, speed of payment is raised in later amendments, so I shall save my comments on that for that moment. 
 My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North mentioned her fears that unscrupulous landlords will dump management responsibility on local authorities. Local authorities will have to take that possibility into account when they consider making designations for selective and additional licensing regimes. As for whether that will be a widespread phenomenon, I do not know, and I do not suppose that anyone does. However, that issue is absolutely worth ventilating. The question in my mind is what the incentive would be for the landlord in those circumstances. If the properties were in particularly bad condition, there would be extremely large expenses for repairs, and there would be no rents if the repairs consumed large sums of money. In the event of an FMO being issued, the landlord, to all intents and purposes, relinquishes rights over the property for a period of five years. The answer to my hon. Friend 's 
 question is that local authorities will have to be vigilant. When confronted with such behaviour, remedies other than FMOs—including among others compulsory purchase and demolition—are available to local authorities, which should be alert to this risk. 
 I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue, because it encouraged us to think harder about these matters. Although it is, in any circumstances, likely only to occur at the margin, we will be alert to it.

Matthew Green: In the spirit of being helpful to the Minister, perhaps he might consider whether a local authority that incurred costs greater than the rent from the property could place a charge on the property, so that if it were sold any excess money would be recovered from its capital value. Would that be legal? Is it a possible route to take in respect of low-value properties, where the landlord would be happy to see the local authority spend the money?

Keith Hill: I am effusive in my expressions of gratitude to the hon. Gentleman. He is right. We anticipate that local authorities will take that course in the type of case that he describes. He has helpfully highlighted that possibility, which is in line with our expectations.
 Finally, I apologise once again for the confusion that I unwittingly created in the Committee. 
 Question put and agreed to. 
 Clause 86 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 87 - Making of interim management orders

Amendments made: No. 49, in 
clause 87, page 59, line 3, leave out 'county court, the court' and insert 
 'residential property tribunal, the tribunal'. 
No. 50, in 
clause 87, page 59, line 6, leave out 'county court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
No. 51, in 
clause 87, page 59, line 7, leave out 
 'by the court to which any such appeal is brought' 
 and insert 
 'on the disposal of any such appeal'. 
No. 52, in 
clause 87, page 59, line 8, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
No. 53, in 
clause 87, page 59, line 12, leave out 'court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
No. 54, in 
clause 87, page 59, line 19, leave out 'county court, the court' and insert 
 'residential property tribunal, the tribunal'. 
No. 55, in 
clause 87, page 59, line 22, leave out 'county court' and insert 'tribunal'. 
No. 56, in 
clause 87, page 59, line 23, leave out 
 'by the court to which any such appeal is brought' 
 and insert 
 'on the disposal of any such appeal'. 
 No. 57, in 
clause 87, page 59, line 24, leave out 'the court' and insert 
 'a residential property tribunal to authorise the making of an interim management order'.—[Keith Hill.]

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 315, in
clause 87, page 59, line 26, leave out subsection (8).
 I am standing at the right time in the right place and, I hope, moving the right amendment. Let us hope that we can move ahead with the same smooth clarity that characterised our debate on the first clause to be dealt with this morning. These are tidying-up amendments, as Committee members will have realised. Amendment No. 316 is grammatical and, given that the Government have already accepted one Opposition amendment, I am looking forward to the Minister accepting this one. He would not want to be outdone by his colleague, the Under-Secretary, who was so generous at an earlier stage in our proceedings. 
 Amendment No. 315 is about syntax and clarity. The first part of clause 87 is difficult to grasp. I can see what it means, but it could be expressed much more clearly. We suggest that it be deleted not because we do not think that it relates to an important point—it clearly is important—but because the Bill must be flexible to allow the part arrangement recommended in the clause. In a complex case, part of a property that is owned by a landlord who is resident or otherwise might need to be licensed. However, I am not sure whether the clause as worded makes that sufficiently clear—its provisions will be subject to all kinds of interpretations by people reading the Bill. The point could be better made, thus my amendment, which is designed to clarify the clause. I hope that the Minister will be able to accept one and think carefully about the other.

Sydney Chapman: On a point of order, Mr. Conway. Are we taking amendments Nos. 315 and 316, or just amendment No. 315?

Derek Conway: We are taking amendment No. 315 first, because the amendments have not been grouped. When I call the Minister or another Committee member, they will deal exclusively with amendment No. 315.

Matthew Green: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) for his point of order. I had thought that I would have to point out that someone was speaking to the wrong amendment for the second time today.
 Amendment No. 315 was certainly worth tabling, because the Minister needs to give some explanation to satisfy the Committee. In particular, the notion of a person having an interest in a house or in part of a house needs to be clarified. What is an interest in part of a house? Clearly, we understand about someone having an estate in the whole of the house. However, there is some ambiguity, and the Minister should explain it for the sake of clarity.

David Kidney: Is the hon. Gentleman misreading the subsection? He suggests that it says an interest in part of the house. However, does it not refer to the resident landlord, who owns the whole house but occupies part of it?

Matthew Green: I agree with the hon. Gentleman—I am wrong. I am misreading the subsection. However, I am still interested in what constitutes an interest, rather than an estate, in a house. An estate, I understand, is someone having financial ownership of some form in a property, but the term interest intrigues me, and I would like the Minister to deal with that.

Robert Syms: To follow up the points made by the hon. Member for Ludlow, if an HMO had a shop underneath it, would that shop be excluded or included? There might be a single entrance. In a city area in which businesses—a parade of shops, for example—operate underneath HMOs, would it be more difficult for a local authority to make an order for part of a building than for the whole building? We need clarification about where the lines are drawn.

David Kidney: The hon. Gentleman is totally misleading in talking about shops. This part of the Bill deals with houses. There is a definition of a house in clause 84; shops are not included.

Robert Syms: I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that. It is important that we are absolutely clear about what we are talking about. Even if on occasions I am not, I hope that the Minister will be.

Keith Hill: I have been known to offer hostages to fortune about the amount of time available to debate Bills in Committee. To say that in many respects my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) is doing a better job than I, would be too great a hostage to fortune. He is absolutely right; I am not saying that.
 This is an attentive Committee and my earlier remarks will be ingrained in hon. Members' memories. I assume that I need not repeat them, other than to say that I was dealing with issues related to the health and safety test, to the definition of ''in the near future''—which I may come back to—and to the requirements on local authorities to seek information. 
 I mentioned the responsibility on the local authority to seek applications for licences, in order to reassure the Committee that local authorities cannot simply sit back and wait for applications to be made. If an authority knows that a property should be licensed, it must take steps to ensure that it is licensed or that an IMO is in place if a licence cannot be granted. However, I stress that the duty to make the application rests on the landlord or manager of the house or HMO. It is they who will commit a criminal offence by operating an HMO without a licence; they cannot sit back and wait for the local authority to remind them that a licence is required. 
 The meaning of the expression ''the near future'' is a matter of common sense. It means as soon as practical in the circumstances—very soon, as I have already said. For example, if a property changes hands and the old licence was surrendered, it should be 
 practical for the new owner to make an application for a licence within days of purchasing the property. We are talking about days or weeks—someone may have been absent on business or on holiday—but not months. 
 Once the application has been made, and until a decision is made, the assumption is that the licence would be granted in the near future. A local authority cannot make an IMO while it has the application and a decision is pending. That mirrors the situation for criminal offences not occurring while an application is pending. 
 As I have already said, the health and safety condition is set out in clause 89, and it is a negative test. I shall deal with that when we consider amendments to that clause, but it might help to say that the test is for the protection of the well-being, safety and welfare of the occupants and those living in the vicinity of the property. The types of thing that might be taken into account are the fitness of the landlord, whether the HMO is suitable for the number of people living there, whether the occupants are causing their neighbours problems and the landlord is doing nothing about it, whether there are outstanding health and safety rating system notices that the landlord has refused to comply with, and whether a resident of an HMO is being threatened with eviction so that the landlord can avoid having to obtain a licence. 
 That leads me on to subsection (2)(b), which is an either/or provision. If the property is perfectly adequate and the tenants are well behaved but the landlord simply refuses to apply for a licence, he will be committing a criminal offence and the local authority will have to make an IMO. Some hon. Members might wonder why, if there is no problem and the tenants and their neighbours are happy, the local authority should make an IMO. The reason is simple. If there is a requirement to obtain a licence, it applies to all who are affected by the requirement; people cannot pick and choose the bits of the law that they like. Someone who says, ''I do not want or need a licence for my property,'' is clearly not a fit and proper person. On the other hand, even if the application has been made promptly and the landlord is entirely co-operative, if the health and safety condition is met the application would be refused and an IMO must be made. 
 Subsection (3) provides that an IMO must be made if the property is licensed under parts 2 or 3 but the authority intends to revoke the licence. The authority may revoke the licence if either it would not, at the time of revocation, grant a further licence, or the health and safety test is met. The first alternative could include circumstances where the landlord or manager has committed a serious criminal offence such as fraud or violence, and the second relates to the fact that the health and safety test will apply at the time of the revocation. Those conditions are not mutually exclusive since one, the other or both conditions can apply. 
 Subsections (4), (5) and (6) provide that an IMO can be made in respect of an HMO that is not subject to the licensing provisions under part 2 because it is not required to be licensed under mandatory licensing and it is not subject to an additional licensing scheme made by the authority. The Government consider that applying an IMO to a non-licensable HMO is not a trifling matter, as it clearly affects the property rights of the owner. There must therefore be a problem to warrant such a step, whereby the health and safety condition is satisfied. The authority must apply to an independent body—the residential property tribunal—for authorisation to make the order. That is important. The tribunal could grant authorisation only if it was satisfied that certain conditions had been met. They include the health and safety test and how far or to what extent the landlord or manager of the house has complied with the approved code of practice for the management of HMOs, to which I shall return when we debate part 7.

John Hayes: I understand that the health and safety test can apply to other owners in the neighbourhood. Houses associated with the house in question may have a health and safety problem or be a risk, but that risk may not necessarily apply to the house in question or its occupiers. That seems to be implied in the Bill. Will the Minister clarify that?

Keith Hill: I think that there are two parts to my reply. First, the physical condition of the property can obviously affect the physical condition of neighbouring properties. Secondly, the antisocial behaviour aspects of the provisions have to affect neighbouring properties, which is central to their purpose under the Bill. We want to introduce effective management to curtail the antisocial behaviour of the occupants in a particular property. There is therefore no requirement to extend the management provisions to the adjacent properties. I am sure that that is what the hon. Gentleman had in mind.

John Hayes: It is what I had in mind. Clearly, matters are much more straightforward in the case of the antisocial behaviour aspects of the Bill. In a sense, the effect on the neighbourhood or other residents and occupiers in the vicinity is fundamental in that respect. However, I can imagine circumstances in which the health and safety issues might affect people in the vicinity—the Bill makes that clear—yet there may not be an obvious or immediate health and safety problem for the residents or occupiers of the house.
 The Minister is looking quizzical, so I shall cite a structural example. Let us suppose that the house abuts another house and the other house is at risk because of the structure of the house in question. If the house itself does not pose a health and safety risk to its occupiers, but provides some risk to neighbouring properties and people in the vicinity who might be walking past it in the streets—a chimney stack may be likely to fall on them—will the house still be covered under the provision? That is the essence of my query. Such matters are not clear from the Bill; they are 
 certainly not clear from the additional notes to the Bill. I want to tease out from the Minister an explanation of the circumstances in such an eventuality.

Keith Hill: I understand the drift of the hon. Gentleman's line of questioning. I do not for a moment want to discount the possibility that there might be serious circumstances in which problems in a property would affect not the occupants, but only neighbours or passers-by. If that were the case, I am not sure that I know the strict answer to the question. On the whole, I find it difficult to think of circumstances where the condition of a property would be likely to affect only non-residents. If a wall were at risk of tumbling down, it would be hard to construe that as not causing at least some sort of anxiety to those living in the property. [Interruption.] Obviously, this line of what-iffery has had its usual exciting effect on Committee members.
 If a chimney were at risk of falling down, that would constitute a risk to the occupants of the property. It is difficult to envisage a chimney falling down without crashing through the roof or causing some damage to the property to which it belongs. If there were damp in a property or water penetration, that would affect both the property and adjacent properties, and it would therefore be appropriate to ensure effective management of the property in question.

John Hayes: I do not want to labour the point, but it is possible in, I accept, exceptional circumstances for a structural fault in a building to cause a greater probability of injury or risk to a neighbouring property or someone else in the vicinity than to the building itself or its occupants. I am no great expert on chimneys and I suspect that the Minister is not either, but I imagine that if a leaning chimney fell on to a neighbouring property, that could be much more dangerous for that property and its occupants than for the house with the chimney or its occupants. Whether that would be the case will depend on matters such as location and structure. I can imagine circumstances in which a building surveyor who found fault with a property might conclude that there was a greater risk of damage being done to a neighbouring property or its occupants.
 In such circumstances, I want issues such as the balance of risk and the probability of injury to be taken into account. The Bill must allow risk to others in the vicinity to be considered, even where there is a small or negligible risk to the house in question or its occupiers. That is the point that I am trying to tease out. The Minister might not want to respond to it now, but I am sure that he will want to come back to us on it, so that we have an absolutely watertight understanding of this aspect of the Bill.

Keith Hill: I may wish to return to that. With the best will in the world, I am reluctant to get sucked into the case of the tumbling chimney, but I cannot believe that even if a chimney were to fall on an adjacent property
 it would not be deemed that there were problems for the occupants of the property to which the chimney belongs resulting from the gaping hole left in the roof.

Matthew Green: What I have to say might help the Minister. He is focused on his role as Minister for housing, but if he thinks of his responsibilities for planning there is a point that may occur to him: I believe that councils have powers to issue orders on any property, regardless of whether it is an HMO, if it is in a dangerous condition and there is a risk that part of it might hurt neighbours or passers-by. I suspect that the necessary powers already exist, as that deals with something falling off a property. I know of cases in my constituency where councils have had to take action in places such as Ludlow with regard to elderly buildings that might fall down on passers-by because they were not being properly maintained, and those buildings had nothing to do with HMOs.

Keith Hill: At the risk of sounding excessively egregious, may I say that the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right? On a more earnest note—I have been recalled to my duties by my officials—the condition of a property is primarily a matter for part 1, irrespective of who it affects. Licensing and IMOs are about the management of the property and, as I have been trying to explain, that would include a response to part 1 notices. This has been an interesting excursion, but I now want to return to the provisions of the clause—whichever clause that is.
 Subsection (7) permits local authorities to make special interim management orders in accordance with clause 88—which is the next clause—for houses that would, had one been made, fall under a part 3 scheme. Such a scheme cannot be made without a tribunal's authority. 
 Subsection (8) appears to be the contentious one. It provides that a local authority may exclude part of a property from an IMO if that part is occupied by a person who owns—or has a long lease on—the whole house. I want to return to that issue. 
 Subsections (9) and (10) explain that a local authority cannot make an IMO immediately following the end of a previous one. That is because the main focus of an IMO is to sort out the long-term arrangements for the proper management of a house or to deal with a specific problem. That is why IMOs should be very short-lived and should last for a few weeks or months—never for longer than a year. The Government do not want to permit IMOs to continue indefinitely. 
 I regret that there seems to be confusion and ambiguity in relation to subsection (8). I was grateful for the interventions by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford to clarify the issue. Before I deal with the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, I will respond to some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Ludlow. He asked what constitutes an interest and what constitutes an estate. The answer is: that is a basic land law question. I am reluctant to answer spontaneously, but with the permission of the hon. Gentleman and the Committee I will return to it. 
 The hon. Member for Poole asked a question about shops and HMOs. I thought that it was comprehensively answered by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford, but I will add that a local authority would be interested in the management of part of a property that was occupied by the tenants. If there were a shop below, it would not be covered by the order. However, there would be no extra difficulty in making an order in such a case. I hope that that reassures the hon. Member for Poole to some extent. 
 The amendment would remove the local authority's discretion to make an IMO that did not apply to the part of a house occupied by a resident landlord. We believe that local authorities should have discretion on that. It may not be necessary or appropriate to apply the IMO to the landlord's own accommodation. For example, he could occupy a self-contained basement flat. In such a case, it is possible that the IMO would have been made because the landlord had managed the HMO so badly that major repairs were needed. I suggest to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings that in those circumstances the local authority should have the discretion to decide whether the landlord's own flat should benefit from the works that the authority will undertake. 
 In other circumstances, it might be necessary to include the landlord's accommodation in the order—for example, where he shares facilities, such as a bathroom or kitchen, with the tenants. Other instances might be where he—as well as the tenants—was behaving in an antisocial manner or where he was harassing the tenants. In those circumstances, inclusion of his accommodation in the order would enable the authority to take injunctive action against him, which might include seeking authority from a court to exclude him from the property. 
 If a landlord is aggrieved by any decision to include or exclude his personal accommodation from such an order, he will have the right to appeal to the tribunal. 
 I hope that, in the light of those explanations, which explain the case for discretion on the part of local authorities, the hon. Gentleman will be content to withdraw the amendment.

John Hayes: I did say that this was a probing amendment designed to clarify what the Bill meant, and there is now greater clarity as a result of the comments made by the Minister and others. I am also mindful of the earlier intervention by the hon. Member for Stafford.
 The principle under discussion is poorly explained in the Bill, but I understand it. There are many circumstances where the landlord's continued presence would be unhelpful, and the Minister referred to those in terms of the relationship between the landlord and remaining tenants who would come under the new regime. There are also many circumstances where one could imagine that the health and safety issues associated with the order would apply to the whole house—I am thinking of fire precautions, hygiene and other issues, which would be common to the parts of the house occupied by the landlord and 
 those occupied by the tenants. In many circumstances, the authority would be likely to apply the order to the whole house. Equally, I take the point that flexibility is desirable and, on that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 316, in
clause 87, page 59, line 34, leave out 'a' and insert 'an'.
 I had, with untypical clumsiness, Mr. Conway, begun to speak about this amendment in my earlier remarks, but you, with typical generosity, did not immediately rush in and draw me to order because I think you knew that it was a temporary error. I shall labour the point no further. 
 This could be my great moment, because I anticipate that the Minister will seize the amendment with both hands. I might be wrong. There could be a debate about the grammar. There could be an argument for ''a'' rather than ''an'', or vice versa.

Robert Syms: Or a Division.

John Hayes: My proposal is not definitive, but I think that ''an'' reads better. I saw my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet moving in his seat, and I thought that he was about to make an argument for ''a'', but I am relieved to see that he was just adjusting his seating. I hope that the Minister seizes the amendment and gives this side of the Committee, particularly those of us who tabled the amendment, our moment of glory. It is the very least he could do.

Sydney Chapman: The amendment is very important, and I intervene for the sake of clarity. It would be fair to say that we are talking about a typographical error, and I pray in aid the fact that the phrase ''an interim'' rather than ''a interim'' has been used elsewhere in the Bill—in clause 110 and many other places.
 I am anxious to find out from my three hon. Friends who tabled the amendment whether they just have eagle eyes or whether they are etymological experts. The best way of finding out is by asking them this simple question, which to set the scene I shall relate to my political career: would my hon. Friends say ''a unique'' or ''an unique''? 
 For my final point, I pray for the support of the hon. Member for Ludlow. In the first sitting of the Standing Committee of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, the Minister's predecessor refused to accept that the Bill contained two typographical—

Matthew Green: Spelling mistakes.

Sydney Chapman: Typographical errors, rather than spelling mistakes. The then Minister resisted that fact, and the majority of the Committee voted—absurdly—in support of him because he said that he was not going to be responsible for the cost of reprinting the Bill. In imploring the Minister, who is reasonably minded, to accept my hon. Friends' amazing amendment, we do not insist that the Bill be reprinted before it needs to be, so I invite the Minister not to use that excuse, as did his predecessor.

Keith Hill: The hon. Gentleman, who is an old jousting companion of mine in these Committees, is very persuasive. I declare myself utterly agnostic on the subject of ''an unique'' as opposed to ''a unique'', or indeed of ''an hotel'' as opposed to ''a hotel'', but I am indisputably committed to ''an IMO'' as opposed to ''a IMO''. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings has his moment of glory: the Government yield and accept his amendment.

John Hayes: I do not want to rush this moment; I feel a major oration coming on. My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet has invited me to explain the roots of the amendment, but I do not want the Minister to recoil from his generosity, so I shall be very brief. Suffice it to say that we who tabled the amendment claim expertise on nothing; we are far too humble to be experts. However, we like to make positive contributions to the Bill as and when we can. I am delighted that, in that spirit, the Minister has accepted the amendment.
 Amendment agreed to. 
 Clause 87, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 88 - Special interim management orders

Amendment made: No. 58, in 
clause 88, page 60, line 4, leave out 'The court' and insert 'A residential property tribunal'.—[Keith Hill.]

Matthew Green: I beg to move amendment No. 331, in
clause 88, page 60, line 11, after 'purpose of', insert 'preventing antisocial behaviour or'.

Derek Conway: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 332, in
clause 89, page 60, line 38, after 'purpose of', insert 'preventing antisocial behaviour or'.

Matthew Green: I am delighted and relieved that the debate on amendment No. 316 about the change of a word did not take the 30 minutes it took to discuss and refuse an amendment that I tabled about a year ago on two spelling mistakes. However, I shall move on to amendments Nos. 331 and 332, as I am sure you will want me to, Mr. Conway.
 The Minister has touched on the amendments already. Essentially, they are probing amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton and I are concerned that the drafting of clause 88(4)—and of clause 89(2), to which amendment No. 332 refers—may be too tight when it comes to dealing with the issues that he outlined in relation to his constituency. 
 The clause relates to picking out a house for a special interim management order. In order to do so, the local authority has to consider 
''that both of the following conditions are satisfied.'' 
One of those is anything that
 ''The appropriate national authority may by order'' 
prescribe. That is completely open. There is a danger that if, through regulations, the Minister closes things down too much, we shall not be able to bring properties within the provisions. 
 The other condition is the clarification of exactly what 
''protecting the health, safety or welfare of persons'' 
means. The Minister has already touched on that; he has given some explanation of that in debate on previous clauses. The issue is really at what level antisocial behaviour starts to challenge the 
''health, safety or welfare of persons occupying, visiting, or otherwise engaging in lawful activities''. 
For example, does excessively loud noise, which many would consider to be antisocial behaviour, challenge their health, safety or welfare? This is a probing amendment to try to find out what the antisocial behaviour might be. There is a concern that the hurdle is being set slightly too high.

John Hayes: This is an interesting group of amendments. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is saying that there could be something that caused a nuisance to people and impacted on their quality of life but could not reasonably be said to be deleterious to their health, safety or welfare.

Matthew Green: That is exactly the point that I am making. Although I am sure that the wording of the amendments would not fit exactly in the clauses, and that the Minister will not accept them, I would like him to be satisfied that the wording of the Bill is sufficient to deal with all forms of antisocial behaviour. I am worried that it is too tightly drawn. We need to focus on the word ''welfare''. We understand the words ''health'' and ''safety'', but does ''welfare'' cover the inability of neighbours to sleep because a person is playing music at 120 dB throughout the night? We tabled the amendments to clarify the position relating to that wording.

Keith Hill: Let me say a word about the purposes of clause 88, which sets out the circumstances in which special interim management orders can be made under clause 87. I imagine that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the provision for extending licensing and management orders to individual properties. That is an important aspect of the Bill and a significant development in local authority power.
 Subsection (4) sets out a condition on health and safety, which is the second of two conditions that a tribunal must consider before granting a special interim management order. The first condition is concerned with the general conditions for selective licensing, as set out in clause 67. These individual orders have to be understood as operating as if a regime were in place. The health and safety condition in clause 89(2) must be met before a tribunal can, under clause 87, grant a local authority an interim management order for an HMO that is not currently required to be licensed. In both clauses 88(4) and 89(2) the condition is that the interim management order must be
''necessary for the purpose of protecting the health, safety or welfare of persons occupying, visiting, or otherwise engaging in lawful activities in the locality of the house.'' 
Amendment No. 331 would amend clause 88(4) so that ''preventing antisocial behaviour'' is part of the second condition to which the tribunal must have regard before granting a special interim management order. 
 I want to draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the first condition that a tribunal must have regard to before granting such an order. That is described in clause 88(3) and (5). What is prescribed must relate to the general conditions for selective licensing set out in clauses 66 and 67 such as low demand or antisocial behaviour. We debated various considerations in relation to antisocial behaviour in clause 67. They apply to the provisions set out in the clauses currently under discussion. 
Matthew Green rose—

Keith Hill: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to develop my argument, as I have not quite finished it. The tribunal has to be satisfied that in the granting of a special interim management order it is justified to refer to antisocial behaviour, where it is appropriate to do so. It would not be right to grant such an order if the behaviour of a particular tenant had no impact on the health, safety or welfare of other persons occupying or visiting, or otherwise engaging in lawful activities in the locality of the house. In other words, the impact on the locality is crucial to the granting of such orders.
 The hon. Gentleman asked a hard question about definitions of the level of antisocial behaviour. At what level does antisocial behaviour affect health, safety and welfare? What is the nature of antisocial behaviour? It would at least have to be severe and repetitive—it would be a matter not of isolated incidents of loud music or abuse but of constant and repeated incidents. If Committee members think of their own experience as constituency MPs, they will acknowledge that it is systematic and repeated antisocial behaviour or harassment—intentional or not—that provokes the desire among neighbours for action to be taken, rather than isolated incidents of loud music or even a single fight on the premises. 
Matthew Green rose—
Mr. Hayes rose—

Keith Hill: As the hon. Member for Ludlow moved the amendment, I give way to him.

Matthew Green: The concern centres on the slightly ambiguous nature of the word ''welfare''. We understand about health and safety—the courts, or the tribunal, would understand definitions of those terms—but what exactly does harming someone's welfare mean? I can envisage different tribunals around the country making different rulings on that. I want to ensure that that test is not set too high. Welfare should not be thought of as just another word for health and safety; it should be thought of as
 encompassing more aspects, such as the inability of neighbours to get a good night's sleep because of persistent noise. That is not necessarily a health issue or a safety issue. Would it come under welfare? Where will the threshold for that be set? Will the Minister provide guidance on that?

Keith Hill: The short answer is yes; that does come under welfare. We are determined that the courts should authorise effective interventions in such situations; otherwise, we would not include these provisions in the Bill. We expect these measures to be implemented consistently, and I believe that that will be achieved by the sharing and pooling of information within the residential property organisation, where there is considerable expertise. We are dealing with lawyers, surveyors and other people who have a lot of experience in the property management field. The hon. Gentleman is rightly concerned that this measure and the interventions should be effective. However, I am content to leave it to the courts to make judgments as they have a broad experience of dealing with, measuring and responding to antisocial behaviour.
 With regard to the definition, in any necessary guidance we will seek to be as precise as possible in this matter.

John Hayes: I think that the hon. Member for Ludlow has a point about the interpretation of the proposals. The Minister will recall from his constituency experience that local authorities are quite reticent about using their current powers relating to antisocial behaviour. Many perceive the bar as being too high, and given the growing nuisance of antisocial behaviour, we have to be very careful not to discourage them from applying this part of the Bill by too tightly determining what affects health, safety and welfare. The word ''nuisance'' would be a good one to use in this respect. Perhaps the Minister should think again about that. I am not sure that the provision is sufficiently broad to encourage local authorities to do what the Minister hopes they will do about controlling behaviour that is clearly unacceptable.

Keith Hill: I am sorry that I have not been able to satisfy the hon. Gentleman about our determination. This should be an effective means of intervention on issues of antisocial behaviour. Not only is antisocial behaviour very high on the public's agenda, but it is the subject of a growing number of interventions through the courts. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the number of antisocial behaviour orders has risen considerably in recent times. I have no hesitation in believing that there will be a willingness on the part of most, and I hope all, local authorities to intervene in these cases and to receive a positive response from the courts.
 We need to strike a balance in interventions. A management order is a very serious interference in property rights, so it is right that we should be at least a little cautious about how we frame the opportunity 
 for those interventions. Nevertheless, I have made it clear that where there is a serious problem, we expect local authorities to act with determination.

John Hayes: I had not expected to speak on this amendment, but in debating it we have alighted on an important point: there is a growing problem of antisocial behaviour in many of our communities, and there is also a real problem concerning the ability of the responsible authorities to deal with it. I am mindful of many constituency cases that the Minister mentioned in which I am not sure that one could convincingly argue that the health or safety of the victims of antisocial behaviour had been affected. It is a moot point as to whether their welfare had been affected.
 The hon. Member for Ludlow is right: the definition of welfare is important. It is certainly true that people's quality of life has been affected. The nuisance caused by neighbours and others have had a damaging—in some cases, devastating—effect on their quality of life. Although, as we have heard this morning, the amendments are designed to re-strike the balance in favour of owners and landlords, we need to be extremely firm about how we deal with the growing menace of antisocial behaviour. 
 I shall draw on constituency experience for examples. Would the Bill affect a situation, for example, in which a family with young children had to put up with a neighbour who constantly shouted and used the foulest possible language in the garden or who was audible through the walls of the house at all hours of the day and night? I am not sure that that would be a health and safety issue. It might be a welfare issue, but that is a hard term to define. Such behaviour would certainly be a profound nuisance because it would cause great offence. 
 Few people would argue that such behaviour was reasonable. Most members of the Committee and members of the public would argue that it was antisocial behaviour, but I am not sure that, in strict terms, it could be described as a welfare matter. A case involving such behaviour was brought to my attention recently, and I hope that the authorities, having been made aware of it, will act. However, they have been reticent about acting in such circumstances. 
 Neighbour disputes are difficult issues for Members of Parliament and others who have to deal with them. However, when there is a palpable case of the behaviour of irresponsible individuals creating a nuisance that is severely injurious to people's quality of life, responsible people have a duty to act, and I am anxious that the Bill is not so narrowly drawn as to make that duty difficult to perform. I am extremely nervous about whether local authorities will intervene in such matters because, despite the Minister's assurances that there are now more antisocial behaviour orders, which is true, and that more curfews are being imposed now—which he is likely to say and which is probably true, too—such measures have been slow starters. There has been a real resistance on the part of those involved to implement such measures. 
 I am sympathetic to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Ludlow. I am not sure that they are ideally worded, as I think he acknowledges. I prefer the terms ''nuisance'' or even ''quality of life'', although the Minister will say that no court could define such words accurately, so perhaps my terms are not right either. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman understands my point. It is not at odds with his sentiment or with his intention in this part of the Bill. However, it needs to be emphasised time and again when dealing with antisocial behaviour.

Keith Hill: I do not know whether the provisions will apply to the specific point raised by the hon. Gentleman; it would obviously be a matter of tenure. We all have constituency cases of antisocial behaviour—some more than others—and we recognise the need for further action. No one, having listened to us or having read the report of our debates, can be in any doubt about the intentions of the Government and Parliament for firm action.
 I turn rapidly to amendment No. 332, which would amend the health and safety condition in clause 89(2) in the same way as that amendment No. 331 proposes to amend clause 88, as a consequence of which the prevention of antisocial behaviour would become part of the health and safety conditions. For the reasons that I gave about amendment No. 331, the amendment is not needed. A local authority will seek an individual management order only when there has been a severe failure in the management of an individual HMO that is outside the scope of existing licensing requirements, and that would include the failure to deal with antisocial behaviour. However, it would not be appropriate for a tribunal to grant such an order if the behaviour of a tenant had had no impact on the health, safety or welfare of other persons occupying, visiting or otherwise engaging in lawful activities in the locality of the house. 
 I think that we have comprehensively scrutinised the issue. In light of that and of my responses, I invite the hon. Member for Ludlow to withdraw the amendment.

Matthew Green: I am slightly reassured by the Minister. Some of what he has said has made clear the Government's intent. However, I remain concerned that because of the ambiguity of the word ''welfare'', local authorities will not use the powers when the Government might have intended that they should. In an earlier sitting, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton gave the example of an HMO used for drug dealing. I am not clear that in those circumstances there would be a direct impact on health, safety or welfare. In some circumstances, the local authority might consider such a situation and say, ''We are not sure; we had better not use the provision'', when it might have been very useful.
 I hope that the Minister is right, although I suspect that he may not be. He is right to say that local authorities should be reluctant to use such a severe power. However, I think that local authorities will be 
 more reluctant even than that to use it, because they will be concerned about the ambiguous nature of the test. 
 I accept, as I have from the start, that the wording of my amendment would not achieve what I seek of it, and I will seek leave to withdraw the amendment. However, I serve notice on the Minister that he may have a problem on his hands. In a couple of years the Government might look at the matter and say, ''Crikey, only a couple of individual management orders have been issued in the whole country. Why is that?'' When asked, the local authorities might say, ''We cannot use them very much''. I hope that the Minister does not end up with such a situation, as has happened a couple of times under other legislation passed by this Government. However, we have pushed the Minister as far as he will give, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. 
 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 317, in
clause 88, page 60, line 33, at end insert—
'(c) any such reference also includes any yard, garden, outhouses, land and appurtenances separate or isolated from any specified house'.
 These amendments deal with a matter that I raised last week. I referred to a case in my constituency in which an irresponsible landlord was housing people in glasshouses, which, by their nature, were detached from the main property. When I visited them, I was alarmed to find mattresses, showing that those glasshouses were used to provide entirely unacceptable accommodation to a large number of people. That situation could easily occur in different sorts of outbuilding. 
 At the end of last week, I was fortunate to attend a seminar, which considered the exploitation of migrant workers. It was attended by 200 people, including Government officials, representatives of the Churches, and a range of local authorities, employers, trade unions and others. The chief executive of my local authority in South Holland described a situation where a ''shanty town'', as he put it, had been found built at the back of a property. A range of the most appalling structures, which were unsanitary and entirely unacceptable as living accommodation, had been erected, and several migrant workers were found housed in them. Those structures could not be described as being part of the house, as they were located in the garden. I am most concerned that the Bill does not cover outbuildings and temporary or permanent structures put up in a garden. One could go further and talk about barns, and former farm or industrial buildings that might be associated with a house but not joined to or part of it. That is a significant loophole.

Sally Keeble: The case that the hon. Gentleman is talking about would be covered by subsection (8)(b), which is permissive. The amendment would mean that
 the local authority had to take over the management of sheds on allotments, which would be problematic. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not want a local authority managing sheds.

John Hayes: The amendment suggests adding paragraph (c), although the hon. Lady's point is very interesting.

Sally Keeble: The amendment goes further because the Government's wording is permissive, and there must be an association between the outbuilding, or whatever, and the main building. My reading of the amendment is that it could relate to any detached buildings. With a set of allotments, for example, the order would have to cover all the allotment sheds, which I am sure he would agree is complete nonsense.

John Hayes: The hon. Lady has been extraordinarily kind in explaining the thrust of my amendment to me. Given our long and close association going back over many years since we were young, new Members of the House, I am unsurprised by, and extremely grateful for, her generosity, for which she is renowned.

Sydney Chapman: Will my hon. Friend give way?

John Hayes: I am about to be the recipient of further generosity.

Sydney Chapman: The hon. Lady is on to a very good point. I quickly realised, as I think most of us did, that proposed paragraph (c) mirrors paragraph (b). I would have amended paragraph (b) to cover the point made in the amendment, which relates to cases where, just the other side of the road, there is land or property—allotments, sheds or whatever—belonging to a landlord. There are no instances of that happening in my constituency, but I can cite cases where landlords own land or buildings 5 or 10 yd away within hereditaments separate from the one in question.

Sally Keeble: May I make a further point?

John Hayes: I am becoming superfluous.

Sally Keeble: The Government's wording is better because it includes the words ''usually enjoyed with''. If a set of garages some way off the main building were being improperly used, they could be included. The Government's wording is therefore permissive, and their formulation will cover every conceivable option that the hon. Gentleman's amendment tries to cover. I am sure that the Minister will want to say something about that.

John Hayes: While the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend have been engaged in this interesting exchange, I have been reacquainting myself with paragraph (b) and my amendment, which would add paragraph (c). The points made by each are accurate and highly relevant. The truth is that my example of glasshouses would probably not be covered under paragraph (b) because of their location in relation to the property, but they would be covered under my proposed paragraph (c). As I said, my amendment would also apply to many farm buildings, which may be on a separate portion of land a considerable distance from
 the main residence. They might be across the road or in a neighbouring field. The building might be closely associated with the owner, and so with the particular house in that sense, but not adjoin or be in the immediate vicinity of the house. The hon. Lady and my hon. Friend are absolutely right to say that the amendment seeks to broaden the definition in the Bill.
 I said that I claim expertise in nothing; my hon. Friend could have added that I should have said that I do not claim expertise in anything, but he was not that pedantic. I am concerned about an experience that is growing more common in my constituency and others. Irresponsible landlords and those associated with them are trading in migrant labour and exploiting all kinds of vulnerable people. That does not apply just to migrant labour, of course, but that is the issue on which I have been focusing recently. Such landlords would find this loophole, and they would make provision outside the law specifically because of it. If someone had the opportunity to house people in inappropriate circumstances a little way from the house, somewhere that was not immediately conjoined to, or associated with, the house, but which was in the landlord's ownership, they would clearly do so if determined enough to trade in that way.

Vera Baird: I do understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making and the problem that he is confronting in his constituency, but there is not word in his amendment that means
''belonging to, or usually enjoyed with''. 
There is no link in paragraph (c) with the original property. Paragraph (c) states only that reference to a house includes 
''any yard, garden, outhouses, land and appurtenances separate or isolated from any specified house''. 
That will include not only the huts on the allotment that go with the house, but lots of other huts on allotments. Am I making my point? The hon. Gentleman is looking blankly at me, so clearly I am not. How do we link that to paragraph (c), which just says that ''any such reference'' to a house 
''includes any yard, garden, outhouses, land and appurtenances separate or isolated from any specified house''? 
We need something like 
''belonging to, or usually enjoyed with'', 
otherwise the building does not come into the ambit of the house that we are talking about.

John Hayes: Yes, that is a fair point. My blank look had nothing to do with the hon. and learned Lady's speech. I was thinking about whether I had remembered to bring my bow tie to London, because I am going to a dinner tonight and I could not recall whether I had it.

Chris Ruane: Disgraceful!

John Hayes: I know that might sound unkind to the hon. and learned Lady, but I was able to think about that and what she was saying simultaneously.
 The linking point is the owner. If the owner has parts of an estate or a range of properties that are joined by his activities, and if there is a link to the people to whom he is renting by his clear business intent, it 
 would be possible to interpret my additional paragraph in an appropriate fashion. There is not much doubt in identifying when a landlord is using a variety of parcels of land for a single business purpose, so the linking fact would be the business purpose of the landlord—his behaviour. I am not sure that that would be as difficult to interpret or identify as the hon. and learned Lady suggests. I think that I have brought my bow tie, so she will be mightily relieved.

Matthew Green: Since the hon. Gentleman is clearly capable of thinking about two things simultaneously, perhaps he should think about the meaning of the phrase ''when in a hole, stop digging.''

John Hayes: I am sorry, I did not hear what the hon. Gentleman said.

Matthew Green: The bow tie was obviously far too interesting. I said to the hon. Gentleman that, since he was clearly capable of thinking about more than one thing simultaneously, before continuing his theme he could think about the phrase ''when in a hole, stop digging.''

John Hayes: No, I do not think that we are in a hole. The amendment is a useful addition to the Bill. It is important to recognise that there are people who currently use land and buildings for rental purposes who will not be covered under the Bill, but who need to be. I give way to the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) again. I am not sure that she has made a convincing case any more than the hon. Gentleman has, but perhaps, they think the same about me.

Vera Baird: We can give the hon. Gentleman explanation after explanation, but it seems that we cannot give him comprehension. It is plain that unless one specifies some link between buildings and the house, one is talking nonsense. What is linked—anybody's house with this house or anybody's hut with this hut? How do we know which huts go with No. 24—which is owned by the same person as No. 22—or which go with No. 22? Frankly, there is no sense in the amendment. I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman has his bow tie.

John Hayes: I defer to the hon. and learned Lady's immense commercial expertise in these matters compared with my own humble experience. I do not want to patronise her, but I suggest to her that I said that where there is a clear and discernable commercial purpose—a business to which an owner or landlord is committed—and where he has a number of parcels of land or buildings, it would be possible to identify those parcels and to act upon that. That does not seem to be rocket science. Given that there are a number of such examples available from my experience—and perhaps from that of Committee members—it is important that the Bill equips us to act in those circumstances.
 If the hon. and learned Lady is certain that the Bill would deal with a situation where someone had a clearly identified business purpose and they were involved in an enterprise whereby they were renting to people on unacceptable terms and were providing 
 unacceptable accommodation, I would defer to her. If she is happy that that could happen, perhaps, she will say so. However, I am not convinced that that would be the case. 
 The amendment would make the Bill more effective. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say, and we will press the amendment to a Division only if he is unable to come up with a satisfactory answer. I think that the amendment is useful and I am delighted to have tabled it. I will be surprised if the Minister convinces me that in the type of case that I have described, the Bill could be applied effectively.

Sydney Chapman: I had not intended to speak to this amendment. The hon. Member for Northampton, North and the hon. and learned Member for Redcar were right to point out their doubts about the intentions of my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings as expressed in the amendment, but although my name does not appear above the amendment, I am in favour of it. Let me explain briefly—I need not rehearse all of the arguments—where the amendment might apply.
 Although I am no lawyer, it is my understanding that when one talks about the legal entity of a property, one talks about the hereditament, which includes the land to which it is a part. An obvious example of that is the front and back garden of a detached house. That is the most simple argument. However, not only could that be excluded by the same owner owning a field—because we are talking about yards, gardens, outhouses and 
''appurtenances belonging to, or usually enjoyed with''— 
the house, but the owner could have a bit of land adjacent, which is no part of that domestic hereditament, but part of another. Although in all likelihood in the sort of rural area that my hon. Friend represents—with distinction—there is more likely to be detached land, such land could, in an urban or suburban area be adjacent to but no part of the next-door property.

Matthew Green: Is not the key phrase in subsection (8)(b) ''usually enjoyed with''? Detached garages in some Shropshire towns are not attached to properties because of the nature of the mediaeval plans. I can think of some in Shrewsbury—a constituency previously held by you, Mr. Conway—where the garages are detached and ''owned'' by a property some distance away. Nevertheless, such a garage would be regarded as ''usually enjoyed with'' that property, because when it came up for sale it would be sold with that property. Likewise, where there is a paddock next door to a house, it would be described as ''usually enjoyed with'' the house. Although I understand the hon. Gentleman's concerns, he is not reading enough into the words ''usually enjoyed with'', which covers the areas about which he is concerned.

Sydney Chapman: I understand exactly what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I do not dispute that. It is possible that a garage used by the tenant may be physically separated from the domestic hereditament that includes the house and garden, and may be outwith the garden. He is right about that, but I am arguing the inverse. A landlord may own No. 22 Sussex gardens, to pick a name out of the blue, and No. 24, but the tenant of No. 22 has no right to the enjoyment of the garden at No. 24. My hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings is on to a good point, albeit a narrow one. Personally, I would have added to paragraph (b), rather than tabling a new subsection. That is the only point I want to make. My hon. Friend is right.

Keith Hill: I hope to be brief in responding to the debate. I appreciate the intention behind the amendment. Many houses or flats have lock-up garages that are separated or isolated from them. To revert to the origin of our great debate on these matters—the case of people living in a glasshouse in a horticultural development in the constituency of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings—perhaps I can reassure him that if people are living in such a place and it is residential, all relevant protections in the legislation would apply. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar are right to say that the hon. Gentleman's concerns are amply covered in the Bill. I am grateful for the clarity of their interventions.
 The amendment is not required, because the words used in clause 88(8)(b) will encompass a ''yard, garden, outhouse''—or glasshouse, for that matter—and appurtenances that are separate or isolated from the house if they belong to, 
''or are usually enjoyed with'' 
the house 
''(or any part of it).'' 
I hope that with those assurances, the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

John Hayes: No, I am not convinced. The difference between proposed paragraph (c) and paragraph (b) is that we talk about an isolated or separate structure—the Minister used those words—whereas paragraph (b) talks about a structure
''belonging to, or usually enjoyed with'' 
the house. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet said, where a building or structure is not ''usually enjoyed with'' the house but is isolated and separate from it, owned by the same person and used for the same business activity, the Bill would not necessarily apply. I am not convinced, although the Minister may be right—

Sally Keeble: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Hayes: I will give way in a minute. Before I do so, I shall respond to the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Redcar. She omitted to mention that our amendment deals with a ''specified house''. It addresses not only the owner and his business purpose, but a business purpose associated with a specified
 house. The piece of land across the road at the end of the field and the building on another part of the farm would be linked to the specified house and the owner, although they would not necessarily be ''enjoyed with it''. That is the sticking point that my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet has articulated.

Sally Keeble: If the structure is completely separate, it could be made the subject of a completely separate interim management order. If it is not actually a house, it should be shut down and the landlord should be prosecuted. This measure is intended to ensure that all the attachments to a building come under an interim management order. Presumably, a completely separate structure can have a separate management order.

John Hayes: If a landlord were running a single business and renting to one group of people, perhaps from a single source, and if he were doing so in several buildings in various locations across one piece of land that he owned—spread over a large acreage, if we take a farm as our example—I suppose that it would be possible for there to be separate orders applying to different types of buildings on different parts of that land. However, that would be a clumsy way to deal with these responsibilities. Is the hon. Lady suggesting that two, three or more orders might apply to one landlord who is engaged in one business with one kind of tenant, but who is using a range of different separate buildings? If so, surely that is a less desirable approach than adding an extra clause that would allow the existing provisions to apply in the way that I have described.
 It is important that the Committee deals with such cases. I accept that they are likely to be exceptional but, given that there are people who want to house others in the most undesirable conditions and who understand that the Bill as it stands does not allow 
 them to do so in an HMO or something that is clearly adjoined to it, a growth in this kind of problem activity will be possible where there are suitable facilities and opportunities. Notwithstanding the understandable and laudable reservations of a couple of Committee members, our amendment would go some way to plugging a loophole. Therefore, rather than dig a hole, as the hon. Member for Ludlow suggests we are doing, let us plug a hole and press the amendment to a Division. 
 Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 14.

Question accordingly negatived.

Derek Conway: There will be a short meeting of the Programming Sub-Committee immediately after the conclusion of this sitting. I ask strangers in the Gallery to withdraw from the Room as quickly as possible, as they are not entitled to be present at the meeting.
 It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order. 
Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock. 
Conway, Mr. Derek ( 
 Chairman 
 Baird, Vera 
 Betts, Mr. 
 Buck, Ms 
 Chapman, Sir Sydney 
 Clark, Paul 
 Cooper, Yvette 
 Field, Mr. Mark 
 Green, Matthew 
 Hayes, Mr. 
 Hill, Keith 
 Iddon, Dr. 
 Keebles, Ms 
 Kidney, Mr. 
 Mole, Mr. 
 Rooney, Mr. 
 Ruane, Chris 
 Selous, Andrew 
 Smith, Geraldine 
 Syms, Mr. 
 Whitehead, Dr.